The Book of Feasts & Seasons (28 page)

Virginia held the phone to her ear with trembling hands. His voice was small and tinny and wonderful. “Honey! Great news. I’ll be home tomorrow. Or, actually, later today. I’ll be in time to see the tree. Don’t start unwrapping presents without me.”

She took a deep breath. Ginny had not opened her eyes. She lay there, still and silent. Could she be sure of a miracle, now? “That's wonderful, Frank! I have good news too, Honey. Ginny was sick, very sick, but she’s better now. She’s all better. This is the best Christmas ever.”

Saint Nicholas raised his arms, placing one hand on Virginia's head, and the other on the head of the motionless girl lying on the shelf with her eyes closed. Nicholas said softly, “Let not this cold place of death be what this child's eye first sees when she wakes, O Lord.”

There was a sensation of swift motion as the morgue walls vanished like shadows. Virginia glimpsed houses and streets, bright with colored lights, empty of men and filled with snow, fly past her eyes with the speed of the wind. Her own little two-story house in the suburbs, her ordinary, un-magical, and non-fantastic home, whose mortgage they could not really afford on her husband's meager pay, the scene of so many terrible days of illness, despair, and lingering pain, now rose up in her view like some impossible dream hooded in white and edged in icicles. They did not go down the chimney, as she half-expected.

Instead, when she opened her eyes, she was standing on the floor of Ginny’s bedroom. The little girl was lying in the same posture as a moment ago, but, with the brightly colored bedsheet beneath her rather than a slab, she looked more like a child slumbering than dead. The tall saint was still bent over her.

Virginia had not put up any decorations that year, and her house had no colored lights on, but when Nicholas straightened up, raised his hand and spoke a word, there was a young pine tree in the room that had not been there before, and on its highest bough stood a silver candle that burned and from which the wax did not drip. And there were dozens of candles on every surface, on the dresser and on the window sill.

Candles, she found herself recalling, were the prayers of the saints. She remembered lighting a candle with Frank on their wedding day.

Nicholas smiled, winked at her, and said, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.”

And then, he was gone.

Ginny opened her eyes. “Mom? I walked on a bridge all made of light and I held the baby Jesus! And I think I dreamed I saw Santa too!”

“You did, baby. Oh, you did! And I saw him too!”

Then it was all tears and joy and laughter.

THE END

CASTALIA HOUSE

Awake in the Night Land

City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis

One Bright Star to Guide Them

The Book of Feasts & Seasons

Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth

THE GOLDEN AGE

The Golden Age

The Phoenix Exultant

The Golden Transcendence

WAR OF THE DREAMING

Last Guardian of Everness

Mists of Everness

CHRONICLES OF CHAOS

Orphans of Chaos

Fugitives of Chaos

Titans of Chaos

COUNT TO THE ESCHATON

Count to a Trillion

The Hermetic Millennia

Judge of Ages

OTHER NOVELS

Null-A Continuum

FANTASY

Awake in the Night
by John C. Wright

Awake in the Night Land
by John C. Wright

One Bright Star to Guide Them
by John C. Wright

The Book of Feasts & Seasons
by John C. Wright

A Magic Broken
by Vox Day

A Throne of Bones
by Vox Day

The Wardog's Coin
by Vox Day

The Last Witchking
by Vox Day

Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy
by Vox Day

The Altar of Hate
by Vox Day

The War in Heaven
by Theodore Beale

The World in Shadow
by Theodore Beale

The Wrath of Angels
by Theodore Beale

SCIENCE FICTION

Big Boys Don't Cry
by Tom Kratman

The Stars Came Back
by Rolf Nelson

City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis
by John C. Wright

Hyperspace Demons
by Jonathan Moeller

On a Starry Night
by Tedd Roberts

QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted
by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills
by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed
by Vox Day

Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation War
by Thomas Hobbes

NON-FICTION

On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009
by William S. Lind

Four Generations of Modern War
by William S. Lind

Equality: The Impossible Quest
by Martin van Creveld

Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth
by John C. Wright

Astronomy and Astrophysics
by Dr. Sarah Salviander

CASTALIA CLASSICS

The Programmed Man
by Jean and Jeff Sutton

Apollo at Go
by Jeff Sutton

First on the Moon
by Jeff Sutton

AUDIOBOOKS

A Magic Broken
, narrated by Nick Afka Thomas

Four Generations of Modern War
, narrated by William S. Lind

TRANSLATIONS

Särjetty taika

QUANTUM MORTIS Un Hombre Disperso

QUANTUM MORTIS Gravedad Mata

Una Estrella Brillante para Guiarlos

QUANTUM MORTIS Um Homem Desintegrado

QUANTUM MORTIS Gravidade Mortal

Uma Magia Perdida

Mantra yang Rusak

La Moneta dal Mercenario

I Ragazzoni non Piangono

QUANTUM MORTIS Тежина Смрти

QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand

Grosse Jungs weinen nicht